


What A Difference A Day Made

by felonazcorp



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies), Mad Max: Fury Road
Genre: And I'm not even sorry, F/M, Slow Burn, The Wives ship Max/Furiosa, and Max and Furiosa cuddle, and find ways to engineer them spending time together, in which we all are just like The Wives, this is turning into shameless self-indulgent fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-29
Updated: 2015-06-01
Packaged: 2018-04-01 20:21:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4033267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/felonazcorp/pseuds/felonazcorp
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the first time in five thousand, five hundred days, Furiosa lets herself be held.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> From the kink meme: "The Wives ship Max/Furiosa. That's it, that's the prompt." 
> 
> http://madmaxkink.dreamwidth.org/450.html?thread=49602#cmt49602
> 
> This is meant to be a one-shot, but knowing me, I will probably revisit this idea again and again. Brace yourselves.

Furiosa hasn't been part of the Wives for almost five thousand, five hundred days. She lost too many babies, too many were born still and cold, too many were born _female_. Still, she remembers some things from her time with Wives, and perhaps that is why she does not realize what their quiet whispers and lilting giggles really mean.

She takes them to be innocent, still, somehow, miraculously.

They are not as innocent as they seem, these girls, these mothers, these women who have seen the worst of what men can offer the world and now, perhaps, also the best.

It is The Dag who starts it all, of course, and Capable is hot on her heels. At first, Furiosa doesn't even notice what is happening. There is a blanket left on the front seat of the War Rig, softer than any she would choose for herself, a canteen of Mother's Milk laid carefully on top. Furiosa doesn't even choose to see it there, assuming it is for one of the Wives, but the Fool sees it, and the Fool stops in his tracks, halfway into the Rig and halfway dangling out of it still.

Slowly, warily, he pulls himself fully into the Rig and carefully settles his bulk down on the seat, edging the blanket out of the way as if he is afraid to get it dirty.

They sit in silence for a time, and then The Dag's voice floats in through the shattered window. Her head pops into view, long white hair billowing around her, a grin splitting her face as she clings to the door.

“The blanket is for you, Fool,” she says, her eyebrows lifting and scrunching up her forehead. “The desert is cold at night. You need to keep warm!” Her eyebrows waggle a little as she grins at them both and then she disappears, a burst of muffled giggles drifting up in her wake that signal at least one other Wife has pulled her down away from the truck.

Slowly, the Fool picks up the blanket with the sort of reverence she is not used to seeing in hard, male hands, and holds it still for a moment, staring down at it. She wonders who he was before he was a Blood Bag, what his life was like, if he knew kindness and compassion, if his smiles were more than grimaces through cracked and dry lips. She wonders nothing at all.

He hands the blanket to her.

For a moment, she simply stares at him. He looks as if he has figured out a riddle, as if he has solved the puzzle of the blanket. It is for her, his face says.

She knows, should she take it, he will wrap his dirty jacket around his shoulders and lean against the door, shivering as he alternately tries to and fights sleep. In the morning, he will be drawn and pale beneath the layer of dust settled over his skin, and he will have circles under his eyes that no amount of red sand can hide. He will still squint into the sun and help them escape, pushing past his exhaustion, pushing his body to do what he asks of it even though his engines are running on fumes.

She turns her head away.

There is silence in the cab for maybe minutes, maybe longer. Furiosa stares out the shattered window, resting the stub of her arm on the ledge, dimly aware and dimly amused that she lines up perfectly with the skeletal arm painted on the side. Her prosthetic is laid across her lap, a heavy weight not unlike a shotgun, no less deadly but twice as useful.

A sloshing sound makes her turn her head again to look at her companion, and she sees him holding out the canteen for her. The blanket is still carefully folded, placed between them on the seat as if he is expecting a third body to join them and is leaving space. Perhaps the space is for his ghosts, flickering behind his eyes. Perhaps the space is for nobody at all. She is tempted to turn away again, but somehow she knows that he will not drink from the canteen if she does not drink as well, and so she slowly lifts her hand to take it from him, choosing to ignore the relief that lightens the lines around his eyes as she takes the canteen and lifts it to her mouth.

“Now you,” she says, her voice feeling far too loud in the deafening silence that stretches between them.

He obediently takes the canteen and places the mouth to his lips, tilting it back, his throat working as he drinks.

She has to tear her eyes away from the sight, unsettled. It has been seven thousand days since she felt any desire to be close to another person in the way she feels now, feels it crawling under her skin. The Citadel had burned those feelings out of her, cauterized the place inside her heart that let her feel anything but a grim determination to survive through any means necessary. Being away from it, even for these few hours, has apparently opened up parts of herself she had locked away.

He licks his lips to catch the last of the milk that clings to them and she finds herself mimicking him.

A snatch of song floats in through the open window on the slip of a breeze, wordless and quiet, a soft lullaby that the Wives sing to each other when Joe has left them and they hold on to each other through the night.

The Fool is still holding on to the canteen, unsure where to put it, and Furiosa takes advantage of his inaction to pick up the blanket with her one good hand and shake it out. With a purposeful twist of her body, she scoots closer to him, her lips pulling back in what should be a grin but feels more like a grimace as he stills again like a wary animal, and she drapes the blanket over them both. It covers their legs, little more, but still, she feels warmer with it shared between them than without. He is a line of heat against her side, radiating warmth dully the way a rock would once the furious sun has sunk below the horizon, letting her leech comfort from him without saying a word.

Slowly, deliberately, she leans closer into him and rests her head on his shoulder.

He is barely breathing, as still as the warm rock he emulates, but his shoulder is pliant enough beneath her head that Furiosa finds herself drifting slightly in the haze between awake and asleep. They sit for what may be an hour, the Fool perfectly still between her and the door, and perhaps it is the fact that only one side of her is warm, perhaps it is because she stupidly lets herself relax, but she shivers once, violently, her knee knocking against his and rattling the brace he wears.

He grunts, the noise somehow close to a question, the first sound she has heard from him all night. Finally, he shifts beneath her, his shoulder lifting and rolling as the arm she has been keeping trapped against her moves, slides behind her, reaches for the blanket. She knows what he will do before he even does it, but still she somehow finds herself surprised when he lifts the blanket higher around her shoulders and tucks it about her, covering her half-arm and her torso and then carefully curling around her. He drapes his arm across her the way he might drape it across the back of the seat, but she finds she does not mind the heavy weight of it pressing her down, keeping her still.

For the first time in five thousand, five hundred days, Furiosa lets herself be held.

She is wakened by giggles, her eyes snapping open, sleep leaving her in a rush. She had been asleep?

The Dag and Capable are staring at them both through the open window, fingers pressed to their lips to hide grins that are spilling free like loose sand. The Fool grunts again, something low and rumbling, lilting higher at the end with what she thinks is amusement. The Dag nods once, as if that was all the communication she needs, and then she and Capable disappear from view. The Fool does not move, does not turn his face away from the window, his arm still about her shoulders. Perhaps he does not know she is awake. Perhaps he is letting her sleep. Perhaps he is simply a crazy _fool_ , and she should stop thinking about things so much.

She leaves her head on his shoulder and closes her eyes deliberately. They should get up and start moving. Staying still is the surest way to be found.

The Fool rumbles beneath her again, making a sound like a contented engine, and Furiosa decides to keep her eyes closed a little while longer.


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the longest time, she hadn't known his name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter also fills this prompt: "I made myself sad by realizing that if (when) Max and Furiosa hook up it would probably be the first time Furiosa has ever had consensual sex  
> So between that and the whole "his wife and child died and he has intense ptsd about it" thing it's gonna take them a million years to get past first base
> 
> basically i want two badass middle-aged road warriors not ready to move beyond innocent kissing and like, acknowledgment of how huge and scary ANY kind of relationship is in a post-apocalyptic wasteland"
> 
> http://madmaxkink.dreamwidth.org/450.html?thread=82370#cmt82370

It had taken many days for them to kiss. Furiosa had not kissed anyone in a very long time, perhaps _never_ , and Max... Well, she knew things were different for Max. 

For the longest time, she hadn't known his name. 

He had told her, she found out, when she was delirious from blood loss and half dead from suffocation, had held her and given her his blood and whispered his name in her ear, but she had been too far gone to hear it, and he had not stuck around for very long when they made their triumphant return. 

 

He came back, eventually, many days later, and she had greeted him with a smile and a nod of her head, and had managed to avoid calling him much of anything until he left again. 

It was The Dag who told her who he was. Or rather, who asked her when Max was coming back, who had looked so incredulous in the face of her confusion that Furiosa actually felt _bad_ about not thinking to ask him again. 

_He saved your life,_ she thinks somewhat guiltily, and then angrily counters that with a _so what?_ She saved his in return. They were even now.

It can't have been that important to him, anyway, because he doesn't call her much of anything either, at least, not until he has come and gone three separate times. 

 

He rumbles into town with a cloud of dust at his heels and a tiny green seedling cradled delicately in his palm, a little growing thing he passes off to The Dag with a smile that transforms his face so drastically she barely recognizes him as the half-feral Blood Bag that had been chained to the front of a War Boy's car. 

He's still smiling when he turns to her, his eyes soft instead of wild, and she finds herself greeting him the way the Vuvalini do; she reaches up with her flesh hand and cups it around the back of his neck, pulling him in to press her forehead to his. He allows it, shockingly easily, and eventually his hand lifts to cup the back of her neck as well, his blunt fingers warm against her skin, a little damp from the dirt he had been carefully holding not a few minutes earlier. 

 

The next time he appears on her horizon, she can admit (to herself, at least), that she has been waiting for him. 

“Max,” she murmurs as she closes her eyes and lets him press his sun-warmed forehead to hers.

There is silence for a moment, and then he rumbles a low hum and his fingers squeeze the back of her neck gently. “Furiosa.” 

It is the first time she has heard him say her name, and she surprises herself with how much she likes it. 

She opens her mouth to say something else to him, but she is interrupted mid-breath by Capable appearing beside them without warning, a smile splitting her face as she greets their Fool far more enthusiastically than Furiosa had. Before either of them have the chance to do more than blink, Max is dragged away in a flurry of red hair and tan-colored linen, and Furiosa is left standing in front of his car with the back of her neck itching and nothing to do. 

So she gets in his car and drives it to the Main Garage, and lets the War Boys swarm over it. 

 

Eventually she finds him again, tucked away in the room the Wives — now called The Sisters, by unanimous vote — have chosen for themselves. They had not wanted individual rooms, most of them never having slept alone in their lives, and so now they reside here, with their beds pushed together so that they can curl up with each other whenever they need to. 

The Dag is holding court, sitting up in bed with a blanket draped over her lap, her brand-new daughter being passed around like a hot rock, a new pair of hands always eager to hold her. 

They had not been allowed to keep the females, had not even been allowed to hold them before their little bodies were thrown over the cliff. 

Angharad — for of course they named her after their fallen Sister — is a sweet child, sloe-eyed with downy blond curls, who sleeps easy and smiles even easier. Even Furiosa had convinced herself to hold the baby for a minute or two, if only to see The Dag smile. 

She arrives just in time to see Cheedo pass Max the baby, dumping the bundle in his arms without giving him time to protest. Furiosa is halfway to reaching out to catch the baby should he fumble when Max seemingly recovers himself, his hands shifting automatically to support Angharad's head, holding her securely so she won't fall, staring into her face. For the briefest of moments, he is transformed, and Furiosa knows that he held a child like this before, _his_ child. 

She does not need to ask what happened to it. 

“Max,” she calls out, ignoring the scolding looks she receives from The Sisters for interrupting their moment. Max has gone from looking paternal to looking haunted, and she can tell he needs to be anywhere other than this room. “I need you.” 

 

They sit in silence, watching the sun set, hiding on a rickety catwalk bolted to the side of one of the bluffs where The Sisters do not like to go for fear of falling. Furiosa is not afraid of falling. She has fallen before, and survived, and she knows there are worse things than falling. Things like being chained down, trapped, _caged._

Max's shoulder is warm against hers, solid, and he has his hands pressed to the catwalk beneath them, his fingers spread. His pinky is barely brushing the edge of her knee but she does not move to give him more room. It takes a long moment, perhaps as close to an hour, but eventually she convinces herself to let her hand drop between them too, her fingers alighting on the back of his hand like a beetle settling down on the hood of her Rig, apt to fly away at any moment. 

He does not twitch beneath her touch, does not even turn his head to look at her, and so she lets herself settle more comfortably against him, her fingers sliding across his knuckles and then between them, curling between his around the edge of the walk. 

Slowly, he starts to list towards her. 

She remembers sleeping on his shoulder, many days ago, when they were still on the run from Joe and his War Rigs and so when she feels his head settle on her shoulder, she lets out a low hum and does not shift away. 

After a long moment, he rumbles in return, his fingers squeezing hers. 

 

Toast corners her the next day, demanding to know what she's doing with him. Furiosa is so shocked that she does nothing but stare, her brows furrowed, her mouth half-open. 

“With who?” she asks, although she already knows the answer. 

“With _Max_ ,” Toast replies acerbically, her hands on her hips. 

Furiosa remains baffled. “...Nothing?” 

This appears to be the wrong answer. Toast huffs dramatically, rolling her eyes and spinning on her heel to stomp away, not explaining this bizarre conversation as she storms off, leaving Furiosa frowning at her retreating back. Clearly Toast has been spending too much time with The Dag. She's starting to behave very strangely. 

 

He doesn't leave. 

Most times, he will stay for three or four days, refueling his car and his body alike, before he slinks away before the sun rises, not saying goodbye, not promising to return. She has no need for either, she thinks, but there are times when she lies awake in her bed and listens to the rumble of a distant engine and _aches_ quietly for something she doesn't understand. 

But this time, he doesn't leave. She doesn't quite realize, as she is kept busy these days, and it seems Max has found something to do with himself, as she can go most of a day without even seeing him in a crowd, but it hits her suddenly that it has been eight whole days since he came back this time and his car is still in the Main Garage. 

“You haven't left,” she says abruptly when she finds him in one of the fields they have started to try to cultivate. 

He stops, his sleeves rolled up, a smear of dirt on his face, a hoe in his hand stilling half-buried in the sandy soil. “...Do you want me to?” 

She had not considered that he would ask this. Abruptly, she feels awkward, almost embarrassed. “No.” 

He doesn't smile, he doesn't laugh, he just huffs out a breath through his nose and nods once, his expression serious despite the hint of a smile hiding around the corners of his full lips. 

“Alright,” she says, for the lack of anything else to say, and turns on her heel to escape this situation. 

She can feel his eyes on the back of her neck even when she knows he can't see her anymore.

 

“Do you love her?” Capable asks, forever blunt and tactless but somehow endearing because of it. 

Furiosa freezes, her weight balanced on one foot, not daring to take a step into the doorway lest she be discovered. She's almost positive who Capable is talking to, and she suddenly finds herself terrified she'll hear his answer. 

There's a grunt in response, noncommittal, and Furiosa feels her stomach sink. 

A giggle and the scuff of fabric; she pushed him, perhaps, jostling his shoulder or punching his leg. “That's not an answer!” 

Capable has lived through so much and yet she is still so young, so naive. She should not be asking him this. He shouldn't have to answer. Furiosa should stomp in as obviously as possible to give him a chance to escape. 

She stays rooted to the spot. 

“Suppose,” comes floating through the door eventually, gruff and quiet, and there are multiple answering squeals that signify more Sisters than just Capable are sitting around, bothering him. 

“You should tell her,” another voice opines, Cheedo speaking gently in counterpoint to Capable's strident demanding. 

Furiosa can't take any more of this. She scuffs her foot deliberately, then takes an obvious step towards the door, pushing it open with enough force that it creaks on its hinges, stepping through and pretending she hasn't heard any of their conversation. The Sisters look in turns guilty and triumphant, but she ignores all of them, looking at Max instead. 

He meets her eyes steadily, something soft to the cant of his head, and she knows he knows she's heard. 

“Max,” she says eventually, breaking the silence, and he stands to join her. 

His shoulder brushes against hers as she turns to leave the room, and she knows it is a deliberate touch.

She lets her hand touch his as they walk down the corridor, a lingering brush that is in no way accidental. 

 

He winds up in a room next to hers — she is sure she has The Sisters to thank for this — which doesn't truly bother her in any way, as Max is a quiet neighbor, only coming to his room when it is time to sleep. 

It's just that she can hear him having nightmares through the wall, can hear him thrashing around in his bed, can hear the startled gasp that means he's woken himself up, can hear the harsh breathing as he seeks to calm himself down. 

It's three days before she feels brave enough to knock at his door once she heard him retire for bed, surprised somehow to find him shirtless when he pulls the door open. 

He does not seem surprised to see her. 

He steps back and allows her in without even making her come up with a flimsy excuse to visit him, lets her take a few steps into his utterly spartan room before shutting the door behind her. She sees the tattoo on his back, the dark ink scrawling along, proclaiming his piss is OK and his genitals are intact, and she finds herself both embarrassed and dismayed to see it. She knew, on some level, he would be marked by his time as a Blood Bag, but she had not expected it to be quite so _obvious._

The brand on his neck is messy and smeared. He had fought them when they marked him. 

For a long moment they just stand and look at each other, and then Furiosa reaches for the buckles that hold her arm in place. Suddenly, there is a pair of hands helping her, easing the brace off her shoulder, his palm warm and solid against the tight muscles that are the result of carrying such a heavy burden on one shoulder only. They are almost exactly the same height, so it's easy to lean into him and let him brace her against his chest, his hand still cupping her shoulder. The other slides around her, pressed firm against the base of her spine, and Furiosa lets out a breath she didn't even know she was holding, a soft sigh pressed into the crook of his neck.

She doesn't know how long he holds her, but when she tries to pull away, he tightens his arm around her, a noise vibrating in his throat that startles her. She's practically pressed up against his neck, and she can hear and _feel_ his protest. 

“Stay,” he murmurs, turning his head to speak into her close-cropped hair. 

She pulls away to look at him, seeing the shadows in his eyes, and nods slowly. 

The last time they slept together, they had been curled uncomfortably in the cab of the War Rig, but this time, they have the space to stretch out together. Max's bed is larger than hers — she would be annoyed, but what use has she of a large bed? — and the two of them fit easily there, lying side by side, their shoulders touching. 

Slowly, like she had a few days ago, she lets her hand drift over to curl over his, a smile settling on her lips when his fingers twist between hers. She rolls closer to him, settling close, hooking her stub over the curve of his elbow as she presses her forehead to his shoulder. 

 

When he wakes them both up with his nightmares, she lets him cling to her, curls her arms about his shoulders and presses his face into her shirt, lets him shake against her and cry into her chest, her fingers smoothing slowly back and forth along the line of his neck, scritching across his scalp and then back down. 

Eventually he quiets and drifts back to sleep, but Furiosa remains awake, her fingertips buried in his hair, standing guard over him so he can rest easy. 

 

She is woken by the door being slammed open. 

“Max! We can't find Furio— _Oh._ ” 

Max lifts his head off of her chest and squints muzzily at the open door, a groggy groaning hum rumbling through him that Furiosa can feel all the way down to her toes, mostly because he's pressed along the side of her body, his chest flush against her side, one of his legs hooked over hers, his arm curled around her belly. 

Capable grins at them both and backs out of the room, murmuring apologies, and Furiosa deliberately closes her eyes. 

Maybe if she pretends it never happened, she can go back to sleep. 

She can feel a quiet laugh vibrate against her side, and despite herself, a smile curls her lips. 

“They're only going to get worse,” she murmurs quietly, sliding her fingers through his hair again. 

He hums, nuzzling against her, the scratch of his beard through her shirt making goosebumps crop up along her arms and the back of her neck. “Mean well,” he mumbles against her side, and she sighs. 

“I know.” 

She doesn't point out how foolish The Sisters are being, talking of love and romance when their lives are, and have been, what they are. She doesn't need to. Max knows better than most what romance gets you; she hasn't needed to ask him what his nightmares are about. He holds a baby like he's woken in the night to change diapers and soothe frightened tears, he settles comfortably against her like he's used to sleeping in a bed with another body. He calls out a dead woman's name when he dreams. 

She focuses on running her fingers through his hair, lifting her chin just enough to see the way he's pillowed himself against her, the glimmer of his eyes through surprisingly long lashes bleached blond by the sun. 

Deliberately, she trails her fingers down the side of his face, feeling the shadow of his beard, the cut of his cheekbones, the lines that have dug themselves into his face. When she gets close to his lips, he turns his head to meet her fingertips, pressing a quiet kiss to them that has her breath hitching. 

“Max—” she starts, but he interrupts her by surging upwards, crawling up the bed and shaking his head at her. 

“Don't,” he says, settling down again, this time up by her face, his arm a heavy weight around her still. 

She frowns at him and he shakes his head, his hand lifting to trace the side of her face the same way she had to him just now. 

“I know.” He smiles at her, sad and understanding, not needing to hear all her reasons why this is a bad idea. 

She sighs quietly, but doesn't try to explain herself anyway, just lets him tuck his fingers under her chin and hold her steady so he can lean in and carefully press his mouth to hers. She knows _about_ kissing, but cannot remember having done it herself, never seeing any appeal in sharing spit with any of the War Boys she's known — kissing Immortan Joe had always been out of the question, praises be — but the way Max's lips move against hers has her melting into him, letting him take the lead here. 

He had a wife. He knows how to do this. 

He presses his forehead to hers when he breaks away to breathe, and Furiosa finds her own breath coming short in her lungs, her good hand trapped between them and clutching at the curve of his shoulder, his skin warm and pliant beneath her hand. 

“Oh,” she breathes, not bothering to explain she had never done that before, knowing he knows. 

She can feel his smile curl against her mouth, his nose sliding along hers as he tips his head to kiss her again, softer this time, holding his mouth against hers for a long moment before breaking away. One broad palm skims up and down her side, sliding up to her shoulder and down the tricep of her half arm, coaxing her to wrap it around his neck as he ducks his head to press his lips to her cheek, to her jaw, to the hollow of her throat. 

His head is heavy as he lays it against her, tucking himself beneath her chin, but she does not feel trapped, not even when he curls his leg around her again. 

Instead, she smiles into his hair, and runs her fingertip along the shell of his ear. 

“How long do you think until they come back?” she asks, pleased when she feels him rumble with laughter against her. He doesn't answer, but he doesn't need to. She curls her palm around the back of his neck and hums. “Mm, you're right. Not long enough.” 

His hand has found its way beneath the hem of her shirt and is curled, warm and broad, around her waist. She thinks about asking him to move it, but remains silent for so long that, without realizing it, she drifts off to sleep again. 

 

She was right, by the way. The door is thrown open again, The Dag and Cheedo staring at them incredulously while a smug Capable stands behind them. 

“I told you!” she hears, and Furiosa groans, flopping her half arm over her face. 

There are giggles, and the sound of the door shutting, and Max grumbles against her throat. 

“Might's'well get up,” he rumbles, rolling onto his back. She finds she misses the weight of him, pressing her down into his bed. How strange.

She sighs quietly, agreeing, and forces herself to sit upright, rubbing her palm over her face and stretching a little. The cowlick that makes itself known every time he cuts his hair is sticking straight upright again, and she finds herself smiling as she looks at him, her face almost creaking as if she is so unfamiliar with the motion that her body has forgotten how to do it properly. 

He grins at her in return for a brief moment before rolling himself off the bed, reaching for the shirt he hadn't worn all night. 

“Gonna take a piss,” he grunts. 

Furiosa rolls her eyes, sliding to her feet and reaching for her arm. “Charming.” She _is_ charmed, though, despite herself, and it's a frightening realization to make, made no less frightening when she feels him duck his head and kiss the back of her neck as she's buckling her straps, warm and already familiar against her skin. 

“I'll save you breakfast,” he promises, and then stomps past her, his heavy step reverberating through the room. 

She finds herself staring after him, her flesh hand rising to touch the place where his lips just were, something soft and fond coloring her eyes. 

“Fool,” she says quietly, shaking her head. This time, she's talking to herself.


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I'm bleeding,” she says bluntly, waiting to see his reaction. 
> 
> Immediately, his eyes flick over her, clearly looking for an injury, a flattering sense of urgency replacing the lazy confusion he had been wearing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is purely self-indulgent and utterly ridiculous and I'm not even sorry. Don't judge me, okay, sometimes you just need to make yourself feel better by imagining how fictional characters handle shit like this.

Furiosa had thought herself barren. After all, she had lost four babies before she had been determined damaged stock and tossed aside to fend for herself. Surely, that would be enough to break even the strongest womb. (If some of those miscarried babies were miscarried purposefully, well, that does not change her opinion of her body. Ruining herself was worth escaping her captivity, even if she traded one set of manacles for another.) 

It is why, after a handful of months living in the newly reborn Green Place, with good food in her belly and a proper bed under her head, she is so confused when she wakes up one morning and feels as if she has been punched in the stomach. 

It is not an unfamiliar feeling, which is why she is so confused by it. She has not been in a fight in many, many days. 

She struggles to pull on her clothes and goes about her day, gritting her teeth against the pain she feels and hoping that it will get better by itself. Capable has started to set up a proper infirmary in the Organic Mechanic's lair, but that does not mean she wants to visit it. She knows what went on in that place. She lost her arm in that place. (Max was branded there, caged there, hung up to drain there. She wants nothing to do with it.) 

Ignoring the pinched look between Max's eyes when he looks at her, she brushes past him and heads for the dining hall, deciding she is just hungry and once she has eaten, she will feel better. 

She does not feel better. 

It's Cheedo's hand on her arm that stops her in the middle of her day, a horrified look on the Sister's face that has her stopping mid-step to find out what is wrong. For a brief moment, she forgets her pain, too distracted by the fear on Cheedo's face to focus on herself. 

“What is it?” she asks, resting both hands on the girl's shoulder. 

“You— You're _bleeding_ ,” Cheedo breathes, horror in her voice. 

For a moment, Furiosa doesn't understand what she means. She has sustained no wounds. Why would she bleed? 

But then it hits her. She's _bleeding._ She glances down between her legs, parting her knees to see her thighs, and sure enough, there is a darks stain spreading down her trousers she had assumed was sweat. It has been over five thousand days since she has properly bled, she had assumed she never would again. No wonder Cheedo was so afraid. If the Wives ever bled, if they did not conceive as soon as they were able, they would be punished severely. To bleed is a terrible thing, to a Wife. 

They have been trying to fix that fear, but it is difficult. Even now, knowing she has no reason to, Furiosa finds herself stilling, terrified for a brief moment. 

“Oh.” 

It explains everything she has been feeling these past few days. Her restlessness. How one moment she wanted nothing more than to feel Max pressed against her, and the next, she wanted to be as far from him as possible. Her _moodiness_ , according to Capable. How she had been voraciously hungry but no food offered to her had been tempting enough to eat. 

“Aren't you and Max—” Cheedo starts, trailing off significantly, her eyebrows lifting. 

Furiosa frowns abruptly. “No!” They aren't... They hadn't... He doesn't... She _wants_ to, she thinks, but neither of them have made any move to do anything more than curl close together, and she is glad of it. 

“Oh,” Cheedo says, seemingly disappointed. “Well maybe you should. I was told it helps.” 

Furiosa seriously doubts that. It sounds like a lie to her, and besides, why would Max want to fuck her when she's bleeding constantly? He's never been squeamish, but all men have their limits, and in Furiosa's experience, the moment a woman starts bleeding _down there_ , they reach it. She sighs, annoyed, convinced she's going to have to sleep in her own bed now, deciding to blame this on Max even though he's not here to defend himself. 

“No,” she repeats, her frown deepening into a scowl. 

Cheedo wisely keeps silent. 

The blood between her thighs is uncomfortable now that she's aware of what it is, and her stomach still feels like someone has shoved their boot into her abdomen. Now that she realizes she has a reason to feel this way, it is much harder to ignore, and so she lets herself be ushered along by Cheedo, pushed into the infirmary to come face to face with the same brief moment of fear on Capable's face before it smooths out into sympathy. 

 

She returns to her quarters with a fresh pair of trousers and gauze for her underwear, a mug of pain-relieving tea clutched in her hand as she walks right past Max's door to find her own. She had not expected his door to open; Max spends most of his days alternating between the Main Garage and the Sowing Fields, tinkering on a motor or lending his capable muscles to help them grow more crops to feed the needy. 

It is rare for him to be inside at this time of day, let alone in his _room._

They stare at each other for a moment, mild bemusement on Max's face and an expression she's sure is akin to a skittish animal's on hers, before he inclines his head to her tea and quirks his eyebrows. 

“I'm bleeding,” she says bluntly, waiting to see his reaction. 

Immediately, his eyes flick over her, clearly looking for an injury, a flattering sense of urgency replacing the lazy confusion he had been wearing. 

“No, I'm not hurt. I'm _bleeding._ ” She gestures with her hand to her abdomen, and suddenly, his eyes clear. 

Silence reigns for a moment before he nods slowly, looking like he's trying to think of the right thing to say. Eventually, he speaks up. 

“Where are you going?” he asks, although it must be obvious, since her hand is on her doorknob and all. 

She knows he's really asking why she's going into _her_ room instead of what has become _their_ room, but she's cranky and uncomfortable, and she doesn't feel like humoring his stupid inability to speak like a regular human being. So she feigns ignorance, managing to paste the mild look on her face that she knows annoys him. 

“To my room,” she says airily, managing to pretend she doesn't want to crawl into bed and feel his warmth pressed all along her aching back. 

His eyebrows beetle over his eyes, that quirk to his mouth forming that she knows means he's irritated but doesn't want to say anything in case he upsets her. It's a hollow victory, knowing she's managed to bring that out in him. She had anticipated it feeling better. 

She sighs, her shoulders slumping. “I need to spend two days in bed,” she mutters, irritated as well, thinking back to a time in her life when her bleeds happened monthly, when she was well-fed enough for her body to be able to waste this amount of blood every twenty-eight days. 

Deliberately, he takes a step back, waiting for her to walk past him into their room. 

She does. 

There still isn't much in this room beside a few discarded pieces of clothing and a new arm she has been tinkering with, but she feels far more at home here than she does just next door, so there is a treacherous part of her that is relieved he was here to silently judge her into cooperating. There was a time in her life when she would have ignored him completely, regardless of how altruistic his motives might have been, and done whatever she damn well pleased. 

She barely manages to make it past him before he shuts the door and immediately reaches for the buckles holding her arm in place; she's relieved and annoyed in equal measure by this, but she's self-aware enough to shut up about it and allows him to take off her heavy prosthesis with nimble fingers, trusting him to look after it. 

Instead, she drinks her tea, grimacing at the bitter taste, praying it starts to work quickly. Furiosa has never been one to whinge and complain about a little pain, but she honestly thinks she would prefer being stabbed in the side than having to live with this again. 

Max moves to let down the curtains they had tacked up over the windows, the fabric not quite covering the entire space but doing a great deal to cut down on the harsh sunlight that steams through all day. Abruptly, Furiosa remembers that he had a wife once, and a child as well, so he must be used to this sort of thing happening. He must have had to deal with his wife's bleeding, with her moodiness, with her pain. 

She feels better and worse at this realization; better, because she knows Max understands that she is not normally like this, that her irritation or her moods are not _really_ because of him, and worse, because she is sure it is dredging up bad memories for him. 

She makes the conscious decision to allow herself not to care. 

He comes up beside her and takes the empty mug from her hands when she has finished her tea, setting it aside and gently nudging her to lie down. Despite the faint sense of bemusement she feels at this, she allows it, allows him to drape a thin blanket over her and sit on the bed beside her hip. 

“Does it hurt?” he asks, and she finds herself staring at him incredulously, her eyebrows crawling up her forehead. She can see him realize he asked a stupid question, huffing a sigh through his nose, and then he tries again. “Does your back hurt?” 

This surprises her. She had not expected him to ask that question. Slowly, she nods. 

He gestures at her, his fingers twirling in mid-air, and for a moment, she doesn't understand what he wants. Eventually, she understands, and she slowly turns onto her stomach, her arm pillowed under her cheek as she looks up at him curiously. 

He settles one huge, warm hand between her shoulder blades, his expression serious, and slowly starts to press his fingertips into her aching muscles, drawing them down the length of her spine and then letting them fan out at the small of her back. She groans, loudly, surprising herself, and tucks her face into the crook of her arm. It feels so good to have him touch her like that, to have those strong fingers push against the knots that kink up her back until they give beneath the pressure, to stroke aching muscles until they relax. 

He doesn't quite laugh, but she thinks she can feel his amusement anyway, and she's tempted to make a rude gesture at him, but that would require lifting her head and she doesn't want to. She's got her good arm tucked beneath her head, it seems like too much work just for the satisfaction of flipping him off. 

She grumbles instead, and this time he does laugh, but it doesn't feel quite as insulting as it otherwise might. 

It helps that he continues to rub at her back, and doesn't try to make conversation with her, just lets her melt slowly beneath his hands until she's drifting in a comfortable doze. 

His lips press to the top of her spine, soft and a little wet like he's just licked them, and she hums sleepily in a half-aware question. 

“Nothing,” he assures her, his hand sliding over her hair for a moment before she feels the bed shift as he stands. “'M gonna talk to Capable. Get you some more tea.” 

She thinks she grunts in response but isn't quite sure. In any case, she hears the door open and then close, and then she's alone, and at that point, she figures she might as well sleep. Max will return eventually, and maybe she'll be feeling well enough by then to thank him for helping her. 

Or maybe she'll make him rub her back again.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Max, it seems, is far more adaptable than her, in addition to being softer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Loosely for the kink meme prompt: "Anything with the wives taking a shine to Max once the dust has settled and he starts visiting on occasions. Every time he arrives one of them comes to drag him back to their living quarters and they all swarm him and fuss and discuss things with him.
> 
> 4 + 1 would be cool, to show the different relationship he has with each one and then the unique relationship he shares with Furiosa? "
> 
> http://madmaxkink.dreamwidth.org/450.html?thread=103362#cmt103362 
> 
> Not quite a 4 + 1 but close enough for government work!

She had always known Max had something of a soft side — he wouldn't have avoided shooting The Splendid Angharad properly if he hadn't, pregnant or not — but Furiosa becomes all too aware of this failing of his slowly over time. At first, she doesn't quite realize what is happening, too used to her life following a certain pattern, anticipating it to remain on the same road she put it on. 

Max, it seems, is far more adaptable than her, in addition to being softer. 

Cheedo is the youngest of the Sisters, the most naive, the most hopeful. She still loves stories, hoards books the way The Dag hoards seeds, clutches them to her chest as if she is protecting them when she talks about them, her voice spiraling higher and higher the more excited she gets. 

Furiosa expects a few quiet grunts and a hum or two in response to this chattering tirade, things she is used to hearing from Max when he has nothing to add but doesn't want to discourage whoever he's speaking to. 

To her surprise, she hears him offer surprisingly insightful commentary, challenging something Cheedo has said and then telling her an entirely new story, his voice low and rumbling and a little cracked like he hasn't been drinking enough water. 

She doesn't know how long ago he lost his wife and child, but she has a sneaking suspicion that they looked, at least partially, like Cheedo does, probably with her dark hair and high cheekbones, judging by the way he stares at her sometimes, like he's seeing someone else's face on her body. There are times he avoids her entirely, as if he can't even look at her, and times where he sits close and watches her with a lost kind of look on his face, like now. Is he imagining his child grown up when he looks at her? His wife, maybe? 

Furiosa doesn't think he's thinking of his wife. Cheedo is so young, still, no sane person would take her as wife. But a child... Cheedo could be hers, easily, and she expects the same could be said for Max. Perhaps that is why he's speaking to her now, telling her things he probably wished he had told his own child. 

Furiosa stills, letting the screwdriver she's got clutched in her hand lie against her thigh, though she doesn't lift her head to watch as Cheedo shifts a little closer to Max, her eyes wide, soaking in this new tale the way the parched ground soaks in their careful irrigation. In the fertile soil of her mind, this story will take root and grow, embellished by all the other stories she knows, carefully tended and turned over, and Furiosa knows she will hear it told again, perhaps to one of the other Sisters, perhaps to their babies. 

Max speaks himself hoarse, by far the most words she has ever heard come spilling from his mouth, and when she eventually lifts her head to look at him when Cheedo has risen to fetch him some water, she sees the wounded hope on his face that confirms all her suspicions. 

Slowly, he turns his head back to look at her, his throat working against a swallow. 

Perhaps she should go to him, thank him for humoring her Sister the way he has, comfort him somehow. She does neither of these things, remaining on her side of the room, silent. But she does smile at him, slowly, gently, and nods at him instead. 

 

Later that night, when he presses his face into the back of her neck and curls his fingers in her shirt, she doesn't ask him what's wrong, just settles her hand over his, her fingers stroking the tendons that stand out sharply on the back of his hand, and presses back against him. 

 

It seems Cheedo's tale has spread, because the next time Furiosa is aware of Max behaving strangely, she finds him out in the fields with The Dag, down on his knees in the dirt, his hands carefully pulling the wrong plants out of the field and transferring them into a little box to be planted elsewhere. 

This, in itself, is not strange. Max has always been willing to work in the fields, as if he enjoys doing things with his hands, having his work have tangible results. 

What is strange is the fact that he has something strapped around his chest, a long bolt of cloth wound tightly around his back and shoulders, and for a brief, terrifying moment, Furiosa thinks he's been injured. 

It isn't until she comes closer that she realizes he's not wearing a bandage, he's wearing a _sling._

There, strapped securely against his chest, is Angharad's tiny body, her blond curls fluttering in the breeze as she sleeps quietly, swaddled close to his heart. 

Furiosa finds her eyes snapping to The Dag, accusation and alarm there in equal measure, but the Sister meets her gaze steadily, her chin lifting defiantly, as if daring her to say anything to her about this development. She might have done, even just a few days earlier, but Furiosa remembers the look on Max's face when he had been telling stories to Cheedo, and maybe he needs this.

She cannot say the best way to heal from mental scars, she has not even healed from her own. None of them have, really, but if he's willing to do this, then it must be helping somehow. 

Apparently secure in her victory, The Dag uses an empty basket, shallow and broad, to fan herself as if _she_ is the one with a heavy burden strapped to her body, turning her head to say something to Max that Furiosa doesn't hear, too busy staring at the way he carefully holds his body to avoid jostling the baby, the way he moves slow and steady so she isn't bumped and woken. 

He straightens, one broad palm lifting to cup the bundle on his chest, holding her steady as he twists his back to alleviate what must be protesting muscles. He catches sight of her standing there, staring at them both, and for a moment, they wind up looking at each other the way they did when he spoke to Cheedo, although this time The Dag is there to witness this moment, her gaze flicking between them both, something amused curling her lips that Furiosa is not willing to examine any more closely. 

 

If she had been forced to think about it, she would have said that The Dag and Cheedo would be the two Sisters who would warm to him the fastest. The Dag has always been a little _odd_ , and Cheedo is still naive enough to form friendships easily and without any sort of deliberation, but the others? 

To say she is surprised to see Max and Toast hunkered over an engine together would be an understatement. 

Toast is called The Knowing for a reason. She absorbs information like dry soil sucking down water, her appetite for new things voracious and fierce and never-ending. She knows the most of the Sisters about weapons, about history, about music, even. 

What she knows nothing about, it seems, are engines. 

This makes sense. The Wives were not allowed to learn anything about cars or engines, for fear that they would try to escape. They did not need to know anything about how to drive or how to coax a carburetor into purring happily again, as it was not relevant to their lives. But now that it is... 

Furiosa recognizes the car they are hunkered over, a piece of junk that she had been meaning to strip for parts, the engine hopelessly seized and useless. If this is what they want to work on, she's happy to let them. 

Leaving them be, she moves to the other side of the workshop, unbuckling her arm and setting it down on the bench that has become _hers_ , clamping it into place so she can work on it without it shifting around irritatingly. Their hushed voices wash over her gently, Max pointing out parts of the engine and what they do, Toast carefully repeating him in the way that means she's committing this to memory. 

Furiosa thinks with amusement to herself as she works grease into a sticking joint that it wouldn't surprise her to find this car down in the fleet with the others in a handful of days, knowing Toast. 

Her smile when her prediction comes true is helpless and broad.

 

Capable has developed something of a cadre of devoted War Boys that follow her around, willing and eager to do anything she might ask of them. This is not unusual in and of itself, Furiosa would have expected something like this to happen in the wake of her relationship with Nux, whatever it might have been. 

What is somewhat more unusual is that Max, too, seems to have developed a loyal band of followers, and it amuses her to see that he is just as baffled by this as she is herself. 

He does not seem to mind being called “Blood Bag” by them still, but listening to the way Capable scolds them has Furiosa turning away suddenly to stifle the laugh that tries to bubble past her lips. Capable is fierce in her disapproval, and the War Boys are like chided puppies, guilty and repentant, and Max remains as baffled as ever. 

They are eating when some of Capable's Boys, as Furiosa has started to call them in her head, come tumbling into the dining hall, looking half wild and scared, their heads scanning left and right until they alight on their table. 

“Blood Bag!” one of them shouts, and gets an elbow in his ribs for the trouble from one of his companions. 

“Max,” he corrects himself, as they all skid to a stop in front of their table. 

Max, his spoon stopped half way to his mouth, lifts his eyebrows at them. 

“Capable is sick,” the second one says, wringing his hands, and Max's eyebrows descend quickly to furrow over his eyes. He glances at her, and she shrugs, not knowing what to do with this information. Furiosa can do nothing, here. Capable is their healer. Furiosa does cars, not people. 

Max grunts at her, pushing away from the table, and lets the Boys herd him out of the room, and that is the last she sees of him for another hour at least. 

When she discovers him again — she will admit she had been looking for him, this was not an accident — he is in Capable's infirmary, its blood-splashed walls painted over with a stark white, the instruments the Organic Mechanic left behind boiled and sterilized and put neatly away. Furiosa can hardly recognize this place, but it still makes her uneasy, and seeing the way Max's shoulders are bunched together makes her realize he is just as uncomfortable as she is. 

Still, he sits beside one of the cots, a cloth in his hand that he's pressing gently to Capable's forehead, curious Boys huddled around them both as they see what he's doing. 

Capable groans piteously, and Max shushes her, rumbling in his quiet way.

“You'll be fine,” he says, dipping the cloth into the bowl balanced on his lap before smoothing it over her forehead again. “It's just a fever.” 

Capable moans again, her head twisting on the thin pillow beneath it, and one of her Boys whimpers quietly. Furiosa understands. They were always deemed disposable; if one of them got sick, they would be put down like a dog. The Wives were more precious, though, but so sheltered that they hardly ever suffered any ailments that were not related to child-bearing. This is likely the first time she has been ill. 

“She needs to keep hydrated.” Max looks up at the Boy closest to him, and the kid nods quickly, a solemn look on his face. “Keep her drinking and keep her cool. She's healthy, her body will look after itself. Just make sure she's comfortable. If she's not better by the end of the day, find me.” 

This is probably the most the Boys have ever heard him speak, and they are all staring at him with wide eyes, shocked and scared and so very serious. 

Max creaks up out of his seat, passing the bowl and cloth off, and Furiosa's eyes immediately drift down to the brace on his knee, once again reminding herself to ask him if he wants her to look at it for him. To her surprise, it looks brand-new, shiny and oiled, with thick leather padding in the spots where it would rub at his leg through his trousers. 

“Toast?” she asks when he comes close enough to hear her, dropping her eyes to his knee significantly. 

He nods, humming a little, and she lets her eyes drift over his shoulder to the cot surrounded by sickly Capable's Boys, the low susurration of their whispers sounding like shifting sand dunes in a storm. 

“Capable?” 

He pauses, looking over his shoulder as well, and this time his hum is lower, softer, more languid. “She'll be fine.” His arm slides around her to usher her out of the room, and she lets herself be pushed, not wanting to stay here any longer than she has to. “They'll look after her.” 

 

“They love you,” she whispers late one night, their curtains letting in slivers of watery moonlight, just enough for her to see his face pressed into her shoulder. 

There's a long moment of silence, but she has grown used to this, and does not try to fill it, just lies there quietly and lets him come up with something to say in his own time. 

“I know,” is his only response, but it is enough. 

She twists her arm uncomfortably so that she can lift her flesh hand to touch his cheek gently. She doesn't need to point out the gravity of this realization; these girls had never been allowed to love something of their own choosing, let alone a _man_. That they have chosen Max for themselves, that they trust him the way they do, not just to hold a gun to protect them, but to hold their baby or care for them when they are sick, is one hell of monumental thing. 

He lifts his head slightly when she touches his cheek, his eyes dark pools in his face in the pale moonlight, and Furiosa feels her heart clench suddenly in her chest.

“I do too,” she breathes after a long pause where she has to force her throat to work. 

He doesn't smile, but the lines around his eyes shift slightly, and his face looks softer for a moment. His lips get pressed to the cap of her shoulder, a soft kiss that she has become quite used to receiving as of late. 

“I know.” 

He may not smile, but she does, because she knows exactly what he's saying in return, and when he tucks himself against her shoulder again, she turns her head and presses a kiss to his forehead, letting her lips linger as she closes her eyes. 

They fall asleep like that, quiet confessions blanketing them, lips pressed to skin, and when they wake, it is with the slow rise of the sun and not because the door has been flung open.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Furiosa has lost count of the days they have been living, safe and secure, in the New Green Place, the days she has been sleeping in Max's bed, the days she has spent in the company of her Sisters as they grow into strong and capable women in their own right.

The weather in the New Green Place is always hellish, which is understandable, located in the desert as they are. 

Tarpaulins have been erected over the delicate gardens, shielding the new shoots from the harsh sun and the poison rain, and they have the added side effect of creating a lovely oasis of shade and green, and with the amount of fresh, clean water they have at hand, it is hardly surprising to find people coming up with excuses to linger under the canopies whenever they can. 

Furiosa has stopped coming up with excuses, and simply makes her way up whenever she wants, for however long she wants. 

Today she sits in a chair she had dragged up the rickety stairs a week or more ago, a book spread open on her lap, though she is not reading it, her head instead tipped back to rest on the back of the chair, her eyes closed, breathing quietly in that space between awake and asleep, absorbing the quiet the way the plants around her absorb their carefully-rationed water. 

She hears the heavy thump-drag-thump of Max's feet and does not open her eyes, just lets her lips curl in a little smile. 

There is no other chair for him to sit in, and she does not much feel like giving up her own, so she is not surprised to feel him stop in front of her, then his hand on her knee as he lowers himself to the ground. She lets her knees spread a little so he can sit down in front of her and lean back against her chair, his head settling on the edge of the seat the way hers is settled against the back. He presses his cheek to the inside of her knee and hums lowly, and she drapes one leg over his shoulder to press her calf against his chest, pleased when she feels his fingers curl around her ankle. 

She had taken off her boots so that she could walk through the plants, and his fingers on the bare skin of her ankle feel shockingly intimate, but she's feeling lazy enough not to care. 

When they are discovered, perhaps half an hour later, her fingers are buried in his hair, slowly scratching to the same rhythm his are, ruffling the fine hair that dusts her shins. She can understand now why he melts against her when she does this; it is soothing, to be petted absently, to be the recipient of uncalculated affection. 

“Furiosa?” 

Disgruntled at being disturbed, she cracks one eye open to see one of Capable's Boys standing in front of them, looking both fascinated and studiously disinterested, obviously torn between the desire to stare at this tableau and feeling like he's not allowed to. 

She grunts a question at him, obviously having been spending too much time with the man at her feet, and the Boy continues. 

“The Planters are looking for you.” 

Furiosa does not move. Silence stretches between the three of them for a moment or two, and then she feels Max's fingers tighten around her ankle in a gentle squeeze, his thumb dragging across her skin once, twice, three times before pausing a moment, then dragging once, tapping once, and dragging again. She knows it's a question, and sighs in response. 

“Tell them I will be down shortly,” is her eventual response, and the Boy nods sharply, skittering away and down the stairs like a pale little beetle. 

Idly, she wonders if she can get away with not going down to see what the Planters want of her, but she knows if she doesn't get up and investigate, The Dag will come up here herself, and Furiosa will never hear the end of it. So eventually, after a few minutes of silence with the heat of Max's hand seeping into her skin, she ruffles his hair and lifts her head properly. 

“You'll have to let go of me,” she points out, smiling when Max just hums at her, his fingers squeezing her ankle. It makes her feel a little better that he is just as loath to be disturbed as she is, although he at least gets to remain here in the cool green shade, and she must go down to the wide fields below. 

She feels less charitable, all of a sudden. 

Max makes no move to get out of her way or to help her with her boots, just remains leaning against the chair even when she has clambered over him, his legs spread out in front of him, his hands loose in his lap as he watches her make herself presentable again, and he has the audacity to grin at her when she lifts her eyebrows at him in query. 

She huffs, rolling her eyes, and descends the stairs to the sound of him laughing, managing to wait until she is out of sight before she smiles as well. 

 

The dust cloud on the horizon has the alarm klaxons ringing. It is not a storm, no, they are all familiar enough with desert storms to know what _those_ look like. It is a raiding party, she is sure of it, a cadre of people who have heard of Immortan Joe's death and the promise of green plants and plentiful water, coming to take their little oasis for themselves. 

The former War Boys are practically clambering all over themselves in an effort to be first, to get into the War Rigs, to be taken to Valhalla, to be shiny and chrome. 

It disturbs her that they have not given up that poison dream, but right now she cannot focus on it. 

“You need to stay,” Max tells her, his feet braced and shoulders broad, blocking her path, looking like he's expecting her to throw a punch to his face. 

She thinks about it. 

“Furiosa.” He frowns at her, his face twisting. It's funny, almost, how expressive he has become in the time since he has settled down in the New Green Place, but perhaps she is just better at reading what his face says without his input. He's _afraid._ “They need _you_ here.” They don't need _him_ , is what he means, and she has a horrible impulse to shout at him, to tell him how wrong he is, to tell him that _she_ needs him. 

She bites her tongue and glares at him instead. 

His shoulders slump a little, and his face twists again, in a new and equally distressing direction. “Please,” he whispers, looking wounded. 

The last thing Furiosa wants is to stay behind, but she knows when she is fighting a losing battle, and so she swallows back her protests and nods once, sharply, pretending she doesn't notice the naked relief on his face when she acquiesces. 

His hand curls around the back of her neck and he presses his forehead to hers, breathing shakily against her lips when she lifts her own hand to his neck and squeezes tightly, her thumb stroking three times, pausing, stroking again, tapping, and stroking. It means something to him, though she never asked him what, and she hopes it will reassure him at least a little. 

“Come back,” she manages to say gruffly, swallowing the words that press at her teeth, not ready to say them yet, not ready to say them in front of the people milling around them. 

“I will,” he promises, and even though she knows it's a hollow promise, one he can't possibly be sure he will keep, it makes her feel a little better. 

She lifts her metal hand in salute to the War Rigs as they ride out into the desert, and pretends she is doing it to bolster the cheering War Boys who cling to their cars, that she is not waving goodbye to her Fool. 

Cheedo, standing beside her, slips her hand into Furiosa's, her palm small and warm against hers. She doesn't say anything when Furiosa clutches it tightly, too tightly, and stays standing with her even after there is nothing to see but dust in the sky. 

 

He does come back, like he promised. 

A little banged up, with some road rash and a bullet graze that needs patching up, but he comes back. They lost a Rig out there, and twelve War Boys, but overall, they were successful, and have protected their territory against raiders. 

It's a good night. 

There is cheering coming from down below that drifts through their window, noise that ebbs and swells steadily, but Furiosa ignores it in favor of listening to Max's heart thump steadily beneath her ear, her head resting on his chest, her arm curled delicately around his middle as she tries to avoid pressing on any internal injuries. His hand is a heavy weight on the back of her neck, and he's been given drugs to help him sleep, so for once she isn't kept up with his scintillating conversation, but she doesn't mind. 

He came back. 

 

Furiosa has lost count of the days they have been living, safe and secure, in the New Green Place, the days she has been sleeping in Max's bed, the days she has spent in the company of her Sisters as they grow into strong and capable women in their own right. 

Angharad is walking now, her fat little legs carrying her far more quickly than Furiosa thinks should be possible, and she is always trailed by one Boy or another, or a plump Mother who is happy to look after so sweet a baby. She smiles, and she gurgles, and she reaches tiny hands up to anyone she pleases, secure in the knowledge that she is welcomed by everyone, even Max. 

Especially Max. 

Furiosa finds the two of them in the bathing rooms, sitting in a shallow pool that can be filled or drained, depending on what you want from it, the water high enough to reach Angharad's little knees when she stands but not so high that she cannot sit down on the bottom of the pool without fear of drowning. 

She's shrieking with laughter, splashing fat baby hands against the surface of the water, sending up droplets that fly everywhere. For a moment Furiosa stands still, watching from the doorway as Max steadies the toddler with one huge hand and lets her tumble herself into his lap, giggling and splashing and babbling at him a mile a minute. He rumbles in response, nodding at her, and dribbles a handful of water down Angharad's back which results in another squeal and peal of laughter. 

Without her input, she finds her feet are taking her deeper into the room, and then she finds herself taking off her boots so she can sit on the edge of the pool and roll up her trousers so she can dangle her feet into the cool water. 

Max turns slightly to look at her, his back twisting, muscles and bone shifting smoothly beneath weather-beaten skin, and Furiosa feels a sudden, shockingly intense bolt of desire shoot through her, heat that pools in her belly when he smiles and even _winks_ at her. He lets himself be distracted by the baby who is trying to climb up his knees to capture his attention, wobbling as she gets her feet tangled in the sopping-wet trousers he's still wearing, and Furiosa is glad for the momentary reprieve, still reeling from the sudden realization that _yes_ , she _wants_ him. 

For a moment, she seriously considers sliding into the pool and drowning herself. 

She's still contemplating it when The Dag flits into the room, her hair tied away from her face in a meandering collection of braids that means she let The Sisters fix it for her _en masse_. “There you are!” she says, and for a brief, confusing moment, Furiosa thinks she's talking to _her._

The Dag reaches past her to pick up her baby, and Furiosa rolls her eyes at herself for such a stupid assumption. Of course she's here for her daughter. 

“Where's your clothes, sprog?” she asks, bouncing Angharad on her hip. “We just got you dressed!” 

“The trick is getting 'em to keep 'em _on_ ,” Max rumbles, and The Dag lifts her head to beam at him, two parents commiserating over the trials and tribulations of raising toddlers. He gives her one of his little half smiles, and Furiosa suddenly realizes that the ghosts that haunt him whenever he's around children seem to have less of a hold on him now. Is this a new development? Had she missed something? He still looks a little pained, but no longer does he appear _terrified_ , and he had been laughing along with Angharad before they were interrupted. 

Is it prolonged exposure that helps someone deal with what haunts them? 

She thinks of the ghosts that haunt her still, and thinks about what she would need to do in order to refuse their hold on her. It is a frightening notion, but watching as Max struggles to his feet, water sluicing down his skin and the drenched fabric of his trousers clinging to muscular thighs, she thinks she might like to try. 

 

They don't run in to much success. 

Either Max has had a similar revelation to the one she had, or he noticed the way she looked at him earlier that day, because when they settle down to sleep, curled together on top of the blankets on his bed, he doesn't just tuck his arm around her and drift off like he normally does. 

She feels his lips trail along her neck, a smattering of kisses pressed into her skin, and one broad palm smooths along her thigh, coaxing her to press back against him. 

She does, swallowing thickly, lets him pull at her hip until she's nestled into the cradle of his thighs, and doesn't try to stifle the shaky sigh that slips past her lips when she feels his tongue skate across her skin. 

Abruptly, she twists in his hold, needing to be facing him, needing to see his eyes. He stops touching her, waiting to see what she wants from him, and they stare at each other in the dark for a moment before she lifts her hand to his cheek and leans in to kiss him deliberately. 

The noise he makes against her lips has that same heat spreading through her, and she finds it easy to curl her leg over him, hooking over his hip to clutch him close to her. His hand drops to the back of her knee, pulling her closer, his fingers digging into her leg in a tight clutch that has ice spreading through her veins just as quickly as her fiery desire had. 

“No,” she gasps, breaking away from his lips, squirming against him, pushing at him with her metal hand. 

He lets go of her immediately, rolling away from her, letting her scramble backwards until she practically falls off the bed. “I'm sorry,” he murmurs, pressed nearly back against the wall, giving her as much space as he can with her between him and the rest of the room. 

“No,” she repeats, clenching her shaking hand into a fist, drawing her knees up to her chest as she sits upright. “No. It's not... They used to...” 

She cannot find the words to explain that she used to have to be held down, that her arms and her legs would be grabbed by bruising fingers and wrenched apart, that she would be chained in place so that she could be bred. She knows Max would never do this to her, but the press of his fingers to the hollow of her knee had brought back memories she thought she had managed to forget, and any desire she might have felt is long gone. 

“It's okay,” he rumbles gently, slowly letting his hand slide over the bed until he can touch her elbow. She watches it move, watches him lift it to touch her skin, and finds that she can bear his touch, that even though she shivers once, she is not repulsed by it. 

“I'm—” she starts, but he shakes his head at her, his thumb stroking over her elbow.

“It's okay,” he repeats, and pats the space on the bed where she used to lie. 

Slowly, she lowers herself back down, keeping a careful space between her body and his, although she does reach over and curl her fingers around his the way she had the first time she joined him in his bed. His hand is warm and broad against hers, and his fingers are gentle as they hold hers cradled between them. The frantic thundering of her heart is slowing now, her breathing easier, but still she lies awake for long enough to watch the faint moonlight travel from one corner of the room to the other. 

If Max lies awake with her, he does a convincing job of feigning sleep, and Furiosa eventually drifts off to the steady in and out of his breath whistling softly through a broken nose.

 

The next time they attempt intimacy, it is far more calculated. Furiosa, absolutely despising failure in any guise, determines to try this whole thing again, because she should be able to be intimate with whomever she pleases, and it seems that Max has become _hers_ , and when life presents an opportunity like _Max_ , well. 

She would be a fool indeed to let _that_ slip through her fingers.

This time it is Max who gasps too harshly for it to be anything but fear as they inch closer to mutual nudity, and when Furiosa pulls away to look at him, she can see that gut-wrenching haunted look pinching the skin around his eyes; a look she had thought, perhaps naively, he would never wear again. 

“What?” she asks, stopping immediately, her flesh hand lifting to cup his cheek. “What is it?” 

He shakes silently beneath her, looking straight through her. 

“ _Max._ ” 

Still, he does not quite meet her eyes. Biting her lip, Furiosa pulls her arm back and smacks him with an open palm, the crack of her hand meeting his cheek deafening in the silence of their room. 

It seems violence is what it takes to drag him back to the present when gentle coaxing fails, probably because he has had much more experience with violence and its immediacy. There's a part of her that despairs, that's wailing in her head, that wants to kick and scream and cry out about the unfairness of this all, but she keeps that on lockdown and instead cups her hand to his cheek again and forces him to look at her properly. 

“Are you with me now?” she asks, not bothering to apologize for hitting him. 

He nods slowly, still looking a little wild around the eyes, and licks his lips, though he doesn't actually reply. 

She doesn't really expect him to. Some ghosts are too personal to share, some wounds too deep to expose to the light of day. She strokes her hand over the side of his face, then lets it slide around to the back of his neck, coaxing him to duck his head down so she can slide her fingers through his hair. It seems this is the closest they will get to intimacy, and Furiosa tells herself she is content with it. 

 

It's an accident that they discover a place, a position, that _does_ work. 

Furiosa may not be allowed to go on raiding runs anymore, or suit up to defend the New Green Place when it's threatened, but she is still the best choice for attempting to negotiate a new treaty with the Bullet Farm. She's in the cab of her refurbished War Rig, making sure everything is all according to her specifications when Max climbs up into the cab beside her. 

She glances at him over her shoulder, and finds him staring straight ahead through the windshield; for a moment she wonders if something is wrong, before she notices the way his mouth is twitching slightly, and she huffs. 

“Is there something you wanted?” she asks, lifting her eyebrows at him, pretending she is annoyed and not reluctantly charmed by him barging into her private space and smirking at her obnoxiously. 

“Just reminiscing,” he replies, leaning forward a little to run a casually possessive hand over the dash. 

Curiously, Furiosa feels heat flare in her veins like he had stroked his hand down her thigh and not over part of her car. “Oh?” 

He hums, leaning back in the passenger seat, rolling his shoulders back a little, and turns his head just enough that she can see the gleam of his eyes. “I should have brought a blanket, but I wasn't thinking.”

She thinks about this for a moment, ideas for responses forming and being discarded — the good thing about Max, one of the many good things about him, is that he is quite happy to give you time to think over what you would like to say to him, as long as you afford him the same courtesy — before she just hums as well and shifts so she's a little closer to him. 

“Are you cold, then?” 

His teeth gleam even in shadow, and that brief wash of heat is back, more insistent than before. “If I said yes?” 

It is not like Max to taunt her this way, and she knows it is equally out of character for her to smirk a little at him in response and feign nonchalance as she replies, “I suppose I'd have to warm you up, then.” 

Somehow she winds up in his lap, her flesh hand curled around the back of his neck, her teeth plucking at his lips as she rocks her hips purposefully against his. He nearly bucks her off him when her thrusts get a little enthusiastic, and she has to slam her metal hand against the ceiling of the cab to avoid being sent head-first into the gear shift, a laugh spilling from her lips at the sudden jolt back into reality. 

“Brace yourself against the door,” she says, and feels him shift beneath her as he gets his heel pressed to the panel behind her. It means he has to lift his leg slightly, sending her more firmly into his lap, and she can't help grinding down against the hard line of his cock again, relishing in the low groan that rattles in his chest when she rolls her hips against his. 

He breathes out her name and she has to lean down to taste its shape in his mouth, curling her tongue against his and panting against his lips as his huge, square hands settle on her hips to direct the way she moves against him. 

She widens her stance as best as she can, considering her precarious perch, groaning in counterpoint to him when the thick seam of her trousers catches her clit as she grinds down against him. She repeats that motion, her nails digging into his skin as she rocks her hips in short, sharp jerks, her blood buzzing in her veins and her breath hitching in her lungs. 

His hands at her hips are holding her tight enough that she thinks she'll walk away from this with bruises blooming under her skin, but for some reason that does nothing to her except spur her on, prompting her to grind against him and bite at his mouth, blindly chasing a climax she can feel building at the base of her spine. 

It's him coming that sends her over the edge, the way his stomach tenses sharply and he sucks a deep breath in through his noise, a groan rattling as his hips jerk beneath her. She can feel his cock twitch through his pants, pulsing steadily, and just the knowledge that she brought this about has her tumbling over the edge of her own orgasm, leaving her shaking above him, a reedy groan slipping through her clenched teeth as she presses her forehead to his and rides it out. 

It seems to take far longer than she ever remembers, but she's enjoying it so much she isn't going to complain. 

Max's hands peel away from her hips, one settling on her thigh and the other sliding up along her spine as she slumps a little more, her knees sliding out behind her as she tips face-first into his chest. 

His heart is pounding beneath her ear in time with her own, and Furiosa has to tuck her face into his neck to hide the stupid smile that's stretching her lips. 

“Well,” he says after they have both gotten themselves a little more under control, shifting slightly beneath her and lifting his hips pointedly. “This is going to make walking out of here uncomfortable.” 

She laughs helplessly, turning her head to press her face against his chest, relief and happiness and something dangerously close to love swelling in her chest and stealing her voice. If questioned, she is definitely going to blame this on the endorphins and nothing else.

His hand stops on the back of her neck, holding her gently in place as he bends to press his lips to her hair, his thumb sweeping over her nape three times, pausing, then sweeping once, tapping once, and sweeping again.

Yeah, definitely the endorphins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "_ _ _" " _ . _" is Morse Code for "O.K." 
> 
> Let's all just pretend Max knows Morse Code for REASONS, okay fight me. He was a cop in the original trilogy, maybe they still teach Morse Code in the future police force WHO KNOWS. (Do they still teach it to present police?? Probably not. Oh well.)


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His thumb brushes over the side of her hand reassuringly and he shakes his head at her, smiling. “You're their ruler,” he says, which is not comforting in the least. He's terrible at this. “I'm just your consort.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the kink meme, talking about literal flower crowns in a post-apocalyptic desert wasteland.
> 
> http://madmaxkink.dreamwidth.org/450.html?thread=189890#cmt189890

The Dag during her pregnancy was not exactly a _nimble_ creature, but she had taken great pleasure in settling herself in her garden, carefully tending the seeds the Keeper had hoarded in her leather bag. Furiosa never had a problem with this, as obviously someone needed to see what those plants would do, and it made The Dag so happy to sit with her fingers plunged into damp soil that she hadn't the heart to mention that the flowers she was so carefully growing, while pretty, were not very useful things and perhaps tending to some beans would be a better use of her time. 

Besides, as loath as she might be to admit it, even Furiosa is drawn to the fragile little leaves of the daisies she grows and the creamy petals of her prized rose, nestled in its crown of thorns. 

She had assumed, once Angharad was born, that The Dag would find herself too busy to devote all her time to her flowers, and put the matter out of her mind. 

In some respects, she's correct. The Dag with a baby is a woman with much less time on her hands, but apparently she has more than enough to sit around and weave a handful of flowers together in a circlet that Furiosa assumes is going to be placed on her daughter's tawny curls. 

To say she's surprised when The Dag drops her crown on Furiosa's head instead is an understatement. 

She makes a wordless noise of confusion, her flesh hand lifting to gently touch the edge of a slightly-deflated bloom. 

“You look good with a crown on your head,” The Dag tells her, making absolutely no effort whatsoever to hide the fact that she's laughing at her. 

Max — who has apparently been chosen as Angharad's favorite person not her mother, and has taken to this new development with surprisingly good grace, all things considered — looks up from where he's letting the toddler play with his fingers so that he can smile at Furiosa across the room and lifts his shoulders at her in response to her silent request to please chime in and explain what is going on here. 

“Tell her I'm right,” The Dag says, seeing this interaction and apparently deciding to press the issue. 

Dutifully, Max inclines his head in a nod. “You look good with a crown on your head,” he parrots, his lips quirking a little when she glares at him. 

The Dag, however, finds this hilarious, but then again, she always was a little odd. 

“I told you so!” 

Furiosa doubts the sanity of everyone around her, but she can't quite deny how it's kind of _nice_ to feel the soft brush of flower petals against her forehead. 

 

Max wisely says nothing when he sees her carefully settling her crown down on the table in their room, taking up the space next to her arm that she usually reserves for pieces of projects she takes up to work on away from the hubbub of the Workroom. 

 

When she finds a second crown settled equally carefully next to her own, slowly-wilting one, Furiosa has to work to hide her smile. 

Luckily, there is no one around to see her fail. 

 

She had thought The Dag was weaving crowns for everyone. It hadn't ever occurred to her that she (and now Max) would be the only recipients of this honor, but it's only when she mentions off-handedly after a few weeks that she's surprised she hasn't noticed petals littering the Sister's room that Max points out that none of them wear the circlets that The Dag weaves. 

“What?” 

Max props himself up on one elbow, arching his eyebrow at her silently as if surprised she hadn't noticed as well. In her defense, he spends far more downtime with the Sisters than she does, more comfortable in their presence than in that of Capable's Boys whereas she is almost the opposite, but he doesn't seem to consider that a good enough excuse, if the tilt of his eyebrows is any indication.

“Yeah,” he says, seemingly at a loss for a moment. “It's just you and me.” 

Furiosa doesn't know what to say to this, and rolls onto her back so she can stare up at the ceiling, her stump laying across her stomach. 

“Oh,” she says finally, and turns her head slightly to look at him, meeting his gaze and allowing him to pretend he's not carefully sliding his fingers along the strip of skin between her shirt and her trousers, as distracting as that touch might be. “Why do you think that is?” 

He shrugs, humming a little, and doesn't respond for so long that Furiosa assumes that's the end of it. 

“You're in charge,” he says finally, having rucked up her shirt enough that he can press his palm flat against her stomach, the tips of his fingers brushing against the edge of her stub. She doesn't let anyone touch it, and even just recently would have moved her arm away, but it seems she's forever going to be allowing Max more liberties than anyone else, because she remains where she is, letting him shift his fingertips against her scarred skin in the smallest of caresses. 

“Not _really,_ ” she protests, thinking of the Council that has been formed, the Milking Mothers and the remaining Vuvalini who have taken Toast and Cheedo under their collective wing, the books they read, the discussions they have. 

Then she thinks about how they defer to her in all things, how the Sisters will come to her with requests they have or questions that have arisen, how one of them will speak for the others as if they have planned out what to say to her in advance. How Capable's Boys, and even the Pups, duck their heads when she passes, how they jump to react when she makes a suggestion for things that should be done. How there is always someone within reach so that she need only turn her head in order to pass word along or hand out orders. 

“ _Oh._ ” 

Max hums again, his fingers flexing a little against her stomach. Absently, she covers his hand with her own, sliding her fingers between his.

“They're _actually_ crowns. I thought she was just joking.” 

He looks contemplative when she turns to see his face again, and this time his low hum lilts up at the end as his head tilts to one side. “I suppose they are.” 

“Max, we're not their _rulers._ ” The last thing Furiosa ever wants is to become a new Immortan Joe, unquestioned, feared, ruling over her city with an iron fist, the people too afraid of her ire to speak up or challenge the things she says. 

His thumb brushes over the side of her hand reassuringly and he shakes his head at her, smiling. “You're their ruler,” he says, which is not comforting in the least. He's terrible at this. “I'm just your consort.” 

That is slightly more comforting, in one respect, but equally distressing in another. She is not ashamed of Max — how _could_ she be? — but that does not mean she really wants whatever it is that is between them to be paraded publicly around. Of course, any real hope of having any privacy is more or less ridiculous in a city such as this, with women like the Sisters around and the Boys flitting in and out, but still. 

She continues to frown at him for long enough that he must deem this conversation over, because he nods once, then leans in to kiss her cheek. 

“I'm going to sleep,” he announces, like she really needs him to tell her this, and lets the arm he'd been bracing himself with collapse beneath him, the whole bed shaking when his weight thumps down against the mattress. She rocks with it, but doesn't bother complaining, knowing he did it on purpose and if she scolds him, she'll just be encouraging him to continue. 

So she says nothing, continuing to stare up at the ceiling, and eventually she hears his breathing even out into the steady rhythm of sleep. His hand remains, warm and broad, against her stomach. 

 

She does not know how to bring up her concerns with the others, and so bides her time for a little while longer, swallowing the protest she wants to make when The Dag drapes a new crown over her head, watching instead the reactions of the other women in the room. 

They all seem to accept this perfectly easily, with no one seeming disgruntled or resentful, and when she turns to look at Max, he _winks_ at her. 

She hates him, sometimes. 

Dismissing Max as utterly unhelpful, she turns her attention back to the women gathered in loose groups around the room, some of them mending torn clothes, some of them playing with Angharad, Cheedo tucked away by herself with a book in her lap. She opens her mouth to say something but then stops herself, being unable to find the right words. 

Instead, she watches them for a time, observing the way they move with each other, the gentle give and take of actions and conversation alike, the care and friendship so clearly visible even from all the way across the room. 

Slowly, she pushes herself to her feet, lifting her flesh hand to carefully pluck the circlet of flowers off of her head. 

Max stares at her as she crosses the room to where Capable and a former Milking Mother named Shea sit sewing neat stitches into ripped clothing, the others only noticing what she's doing when she's already draped her crown over Shea's frizzy curls. 

“Either we all wear them or nobody will,” she declares, conveniently ignoring the fact that although she's declining the title of ruler, she's certainly acting like one at the moment. “I am nobody's queen.” 

She doesn't bother elaborating, knowing that the women around her know her well enough not to need any real clarification there, and instead turns and heads to sit down beside Max where he and The Dag are keeping Angharad occupied so she does not go bother anyone else. Furiosa is not precisely good with children, but Angharad seems to be less interested in her than anyone else, which suits Furiosa just fine. 

She's not here for the baby, anyway. 

Max's hand is warm and dry as it slides over her skin, his fingers solid and thick as they lace between hers, and he does her the courtesy of not making any comment when she squeezes his hand so tightly her knuckles turn white. 

“Guess I'll have to pick more flowers,” The Dag says casually, not looking up from where she's pulling toys from her daughter's mouth. Still, Furiosa can see from this angle that there is a broad smile on her face, and she has a suspicion it's not Angharad who put it there. 

“I guess you will,” she agrees after a moment, a smile on her own face, one that only widens when Max hums in agreement and leans closer as if he is going to whisper something in her ear. He says nothing, but does press his lips to the hollow beneath her ear, and that is more than enough to turn her smile into something incredibly damning. 

“I still get to be your consort though, right?” Max murmurs when he's finished kissing her, and although he's quiet, he's clearly not quiet enough not to be overheard, because The Dag laughs brightly as soon as he's said it, drawing everyone's attention to their little group. 

Furiosa rolls her eyes at him, but can't keep the smile off her face. “I suppose so.”

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I did take the title from the Dinah Washington song. No, I don't think it's appropriate at all, considering. No, I don't care. If you squint it's kind of relevant, so there.


End file.
